In theory, the MSRB is supposed to protect the public interest, investors, and state and local governments. In practice, the MSRB membership structure is more shaded toward protecting the financial professionals who broker the deals.

People want to act like they know celebrities. They want to see pictures. They want to know where you’re going. They want to hear you talk about your family.

Transparency at the MSRB is dubious with data downloads too costly for all but the Vanguards of the world.

The IRS! They’re like the Mafia, they can take anything they want!

One of the best predictors of policy around is Thomas Ferguson’s investment theory of politics, as he calls it – very outstanding political economist – which essentially – I mean, to say it in a sentence, he describes elections as occasions in which groups of investors coalesce and invest to control the state.

We would like a stable policy framework, and whatever incentives and tax structures are there should be made known to investors upfront. There should be credibility, clarity and continuity in both policy formulation and its implementation.

Prohibition is better than no liquor at all.

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.

In California, we have some of the strongest consumer protection laws in the country. While it is easy to conceive of innovation and regulation as mutually exclusive, California is proof that we can do both. We can innovate responsibly.

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

You know we’re going to control the insurance companies.

Remember that all financial markets are filled with good but not necessarily innocent people looking after their own self-interests before they look after yours.

You can’t regulate every lab in the world.

It is well known that the Soviet Union closely regulates all organizations and movements, including religion.

The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.

What we have to find is the right level of regulation of our financial system so that it has the incentive to invest in things, but at the same time, it is sufficiently regulated so it can’t get in the kind of trouble that we have seen in the past and we have seen recently.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

If medical doctors can be sued for malpractice, shouldn’t financial professionals practice under the same safeguard?

We believe that according the name ‚investors‘ to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a ‚romantic.‘

Antitrust is the way that the government promotes markets when there are market failures. It has nothing to do with the idea of free information.